You're Not Building Netflix: Stop Coding Like You Are

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Over-engineering is a common trap for intermediate developers who apply enterprise patterns and abstractions to simple problems. The article argues against premature abstraction, showing real examples of unnecessarily complex code that could be replaced with straightforward solutions. Key principles include: abstract only what

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Nov 25, 2025•13m read time•From dev.to

Table of contents

Table of Contents The War Crime Red Flag #1: The "Future-Proofing" Fallacy Red Flag #2: The Interface with One Implementation Red Flag #3: The Generic Solution Nobody Asked For Red Flag #4: Abstracting Stable Code, Coupling Volatile Code Red Flag #5: The "Enterprise" Mindset Red Flag #6: The Premature Abstraction When Abstraction Actually Makes Sense The Checklist: Should You Abstract This?The Recovery: Deleting Bad Abstractions The Truth About "Scalable" Code The Philosophy Conclusion